Chooseday’s Choice ~ Bottled or Tap Water?

Different kinds of plastic can degrade at different times and on average it takes 1,000 years for one plastic bottle to breakdown in a landfill.  Most plastic bottles consist of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) which is made from petroleum and will never biodegrade. About 1.6 million barrels of oil are used every year to make the bottles. The bottled water is then transported long distances via lorries and energy is also used by on board refrigeration methods which makes it a very unsustainable choice.

Although polyethylene bottles don’t biodegrade, they do photodegrade. When exposed to ultraviolet radiation from sunlight they become brittle and start to crack. Plastic bottles buried in a landfill rarely sees the light of day but in the ocean, which is where a lot of discarded plastic bottles end up it is a far different story. With the combination of warm ocean water and sunlight the plastic bottles can break down in as little as a year. Good news you might think but the plastic is broken down into small fragments which are toxic and sadly end up in the stomach of marine animals and birds. The fragments are also washed up and dispersed along our shoreline where we can come in contact with the toxins.

There is no noticeable difference between most bottled water and tap water, either in taste or quality, so it’s much more sustainable to get your water straight from the tap!

You Choose!